There is a popular idiom in Russian for describing a really crowded place: "(there's) no room for an apple to fall" ("яблоку негде упасть").

I struggle to think of anything similar in English, and the dictionaries I consulted were of no help, simply translating it as "crowded" or not even including it at all.

The context would be something and anything along the lines of

The place was so crowded that [X].
The room was full to the extent that [Y].
The street/square was [Z].
At the top of the hat charts, there is [no room for an apple to fall].

Which is to say, I am not married to any sentence structure in particular — I'll gladly rewrite from scratch to use a vivid and idiomatic adjective or noun, word or phrase, metaphor or saying, rather than try and shoehorn it into a sentence it does not feel itself welcome in.

Interesting, in Dutch we have several expression like that, describing people being packed like sardines in a tin or herrings in a cask. Come to think of it, no English expression springs to mind :)
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oerkelensDec 30 '13 at 14:10

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In Chinese, we also have colloquial expressions such as "packed like sardines" to describe a jam-packed subway train. I don't know if it was borrowed from English. Alternatively, we also say a place is so crowded that there is nowhere for a needle to be poked (inserted).
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inewbieDec 31 '13 at 3:57

28 Answers
28

If it is extremely crowded, you can say "packed like sardines in a can" or just "packed like sardines" or "packed." This comes from the way sardines are tightly packed into cans when canned for eating:

Strictly speaking, some people will object to this usage: both the place and the people in it can be said to be packed, but only the people can strictly be packed like sardines since the sardines are inside the can and the people are inside the crowded place. However, colloquially people will use the phrase in both senses. Also, most people just say packed:

I wasn't aware of that expression being used in English :) Thank you :)
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oerkelensDec 30 '13 at 14:11

9

I believe this is the same derivation of packed to the gills?
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medicaDec 30 '13 at 14:29

18

Usage note: The room wouldn't be packed like sardines; the people or things in it would.
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cHaoDec 30 '13 at 15:28

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@2er0, nope - I live in the U.S., and we say "the bus was packed" all the time. It's a very common phrase.
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EmmySDec 30 '13 at 18:22

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You'll say "the bus was packed", sure, but you won't say "the bus was packed like sardines". If you use the whole phrase (and not just the shortened packed), you should refer to people or items, not the container. If referring to the people in the bus, you would say "we were packed like sardines".
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terdonDec 30 '13 at 20:26

Living in Central U.S, I've personally heard "Bursting at the seams", though usually its when someone is telling a story and wants some extra flair to describe it. Not really a casual description if you're talking to one friend. The one I hear the most is probably "(the place was) packed" or "it's packed in here". I like this list the most myself, though the bee one reminds me of "As busy as a bee".
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DoubleDoubleDec 30 '13 at 18:25

+1, nice ones. Never heard pressed in that context before. I would have taken it to mean under pressure or forced or similar not packed. Do you mean pressed together?
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terdonDec 30 '13 at 20:47

@terdon - yes, pressed so hard together, it is as though we are olives being pressed for our oil. It can be used for more than one concert I've been to.
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medicaDec 30 '13 at 20:57

The wale in gunwale is not "wall." It is a band
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dfcMay 17 '14 at 4:10

There was no room to swing a cat? We were pressed together like peas in a pod (often used to indicate uniformity, but sometimes literal closeness)? You couldn't fit a knife/cigarette paper between the [contestants]?

Perhaps it originally was crammed, but I would always say rammed now.
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SteDec 30 '13 at 19:40

Agree with "crammed" rather than "rammed". Rhyming with these is "jammed" leading to "jam packed". To me "rammed" suggests pushing as in "the shot was rammed into the musket".
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AdrianHHHDec 31 '13 at 13:52

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In British English it's definitely rammed [full], not crammed [full]. The metaphor here is ramming a cannon with shot before firing.
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MattDec 31 '13 at 14:05

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Well I'm as Northern as they come and I say rammed a lot.
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SteJan 1 '14 at 13:25

+1 I've also heard this phrased as "there's no room to breathe".
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JoshDec 30 '13 at 18:02

also, when somebody gets hurt and people crowd around, "Give him some air" or "give him some room to breathe" is often said to get people to make some room for the hurt person.
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DoubleDoubleDec 30 '13 at 18:34

One thing these have that most of the other entries lack is the implication of motion. A place that's packed to the gills or crowded like sardines implies everyone is so crowded there's no room to move. But a throng or a place teeming or swarming with people implies they're busily moving around despite being crowded together.
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Darrel HoffmanDec 30 '13 at 21:01

I don’t understand why people pick on cats so mercilessly.
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tchristDec 30 '13 at 20:22

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@tchrist A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way. - Mark Twain
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Elliott FrischDec 30 '13 at 20:22

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I've heard "to swing a cat" refers to the old practice of beating rugs with cat-o-nine tails, not the actual animal.
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Richard WyattDec 30 '13 at 20:58

The phrase "standing room only" is commonly used for audiences, but would be understood if applied to rooms as well.
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wlangstrothDec 30 '13 at 21:39

This is suspected to be a folk etymology. There is evidence that the phrase "enough room to swing a cat" was already in common use by 1665, however although the cat-o-nine-tails was certainly being used by then, there's no evidence that it was then called a cat-o-nine-tails.
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tobyinkDec 30 '13 at 21:40

I think that "like Piccadilly Circus" also has connotations of being extremely busy and lively, and not simply being full of people. A funeral could be packed, but it wouldn't be like Piccadilly Circus.
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Chris TaylorDec 30 '13 at 19:28

"packed like sardines" was actually the first thing came up to my mind.
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Damkerng T.Dec 31 '13 at 13:35

In Brisbane we might say something along the lines of "it's like Queen St Mall in here!" (Queen St being a busy pedestrian shopping street in the Brisbane CBD). I'd imagine there are a lot of regional variations on this theme.
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JivlainDec 31 '13 at 14:40

"It's like the Black Hole of Calcutta in here." This refers to the tiny dungeon in which British prisoners of war were held in June 1756 after the fall of Fort William, Calcutta, where (allegedly) the vast majority perished from suffocation or heat exhaustion because so many people were crammed into such a small space.

For a one word equivalent of "crowded": crammed, rammed, heaving, packed.

Irish has the expression dubh le daoine, and a literal translation of that — “black with people” — is used in Irish English to describe a crowded space. According to a post on boards.ie, this can sometimes be abbreviated to “it’s black in here” to describe a crowded space.

(Interestingly, I learn also from boards.ie of an equivalent expression in French: être noir de monde.)

@tchrist to accuse the user of plagiarism (see your meta post) is very objectionable when clearly the citations are linked definitions taken from a dictionary and placed in blockquotes. I think you are overstating your case. Would leaving the answer simply at "brimming" "overflowing" and "overcrowded" have been preferable for ELU?
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Mari-Lou AAug 4 '14 at 7:30

@Mari-LouA The answer on the meta post clearly states that the source must be explicitly named in plain text. This has not been done.
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tchristAug 4 '14 at 7:31

@tchrist nowhere do I see or could possibly interpret the user as appropriating the written material as his own. Via meta: posting the work of others with no indication that it is not your own. There are three separate links directing the reader to the source, i.e. Oxford Dictionaries. The "answer" is not an example of plagiarism as you stated in your meta post The Ugly: examples of completely unattributed copying (plagiarism):
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Mari-Lou AAug 4 '14 at 10:11

Not really, as though chocker is an abbreviated form of chock-a-block, it is a different word, and somebody who would say chocker wouldn't necessarily say chock-a-block.
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Facebook AnswersDec 31 '13 at 21:40